Posted on 03/22/2002 1:12:55 PM PST by Jim Robinson
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 15, 2001
President Bush Outlines Campaign Reform Principles
March 15, 2001
The Honorable Trent Lott
Senate Majority Leader
S-230, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Lott:
As the Senate prepares to consider campaign finance reform legislation, I wanted to highlight my principles for reform. I am committed to working with the Congress to ensure that fair and balanced campaign reform legislation is enacted.
These principles represent my framework for assessing campaign finance reform legislation. I remain open to other ideas to meet shared goals.
I am hopeful that, working together, we can achieve responsible campaign finance reforms.
Sincerely,
George W. Bush
Campaign Finance Reform
President Bush's Reform Principles
Protect Rights of Individuals to Participate in Democracy: President Bush believes democracy is first and foremost about the rights of individuals to express their views. He supports strengthening the role of individuals in the political process by: 1) updating the limits established more than two decades ago on individual giving to candidates and national parties; and 2) protecting the rights of citizen groups to engage in issue advocacy.
Maintain Strong Political Parties: President Bush believes political parties play an essential role in making America's democratic system operate. He wants to maintain the strength of parties, and not to weaken them. Any reform should help political parties more fully engage citizens in the political process and encourage them to express their views and to vote.
Ban Corporate and Union Soft Money: Corporations and labor unions spend millions of dollars every election cycle in unregulated 'soft? money to influence federal elections. President Bush supports a ban on unregulated corporate and union contributions of soft money to political parties.
Eliminate Involuntary Contributions: President Bush believes no one should be forced to support a candidate or cause against his or her will. He therefore supports two parallel reforms: 1) legislation to prohibit corporations from using treasury funds for political activity without the permission of shareholders; and 2) legislation to require unions to obtain authorization from each dues-paying worker before spending those dues on activities unrelated to collective bargaining.
Require Full and Prompt Disclosure: President Bush also believes that in an open society, the best safeguard against abuse is full disclosure. He supports full, prompt and constitutionally permissible disclosure of contributions and expenditures designed to influence the outcome of federal elections, so voters will have complete and timely information on which to make informed decisions.
Promote Fair, Balanced, Constitutional Approach: President Bush believes reform should not favor any one party over another or incumbents over challengers. Both corporations and unions should be prohibited from giving soft money to political parties, and both corporations and unions should have to obtain permission from their stockholders or dues-paying workers before spending treasury funds or dues on politics. President Bush supports including a non-severability provision, so if any provision of the bill is found unconstitutional, the entire bill is sent back to Congress for further adjustments and deliberations. This provision will ensure fair and balanced campaign finance reform.
AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN.....you get the point!
An aside, I was thinking now that we've eliminated those negative ads, now we can campaign to eliminate the negative news? Might be fun to watch them scream.
That which you think a joke is actually the truth. Running from the truth will never allow you to face and address it. Until we vote straight liberal tickets and eradicate completely FAKE conservatism, we will never be able to overcome liberalism. To win this battle, we need REAL conservatism. The ONLY way we're ever going to get REAL conservatism is by getting the fakes out of the way. The republican party is 99% pure FAKE.
America should have two parties that pull each other on jurisdictional ground and not on social class ground, though social classes have their own jurisdiction in their own rights. After all money has its own jurisdiction, and so do the bums in the streets who have nothing to lose and possess a force of their own for this very "quality". But money or nothing to lose attitudes are very cynical jurisdictions that in the end work only for themselves and not for the respect of jurisdiction in general as the Founding Fathers had intended.
Still America should refocus on jurisdictional grounds vs the communist prone ground of social class struggle existing in the righ against left system. What is needed is a Federal jurisdiction party vs. Individual/State jurisdiction party created, so that we come back to discuss at the political level sane constitutional matters, and not the gibberish of brands of political correctnesses and zealotry we have today between leftist definitions and rightist definitions. The Libertarian party pretends to take that project but it is a party misleading many toward politicaly correct goals that the left supports, and, in fact, the libertarians never really speak in terms of jurisdiction but in terms of definitions. Individual jurisdiction amongst libertarian is highly limited around what one should feel in his own immediate environment and body, and not beyond, while we know that vital civic duties in the US do require larger jurisdictional powers of individuals, such as the options of addressing issues of nuisances of drug addictions, prostitutions, single mums etc., jurisdictions Libertarians want to deny individuals and states for purely definitional reasons that are taken outside the scope of due processes of law.
We need to redefine America, to refocus America on the main issue: Jurisdiction. We cannot go on like this being imposed this social class struggle that the stupid rich and bourgeois fall easily trap into to their own destruction and the benefit of those who have nothing to lose and who have so many ways to drag the nation down to levels that make "nothing to lose" attitudes the winning party.
Bush is completely disoriented and erratic, he has difficulties separating business from other issues, and he seems very uneasy in his spirituality. Democrats feel they are well orientated by leftist doctrines, but that is an illusion because they orient themselves according to a precise book of definitions that paint a completely distorted picture of reality. The social engineering promoted by democrats is not even at all like a pro-federal government view, it is a view that seeks to define and control masses of people and individuals as one would name animals, plants and rocks. It denies completely man's capacity to make decision, whereas true pro-Federal people acknowledge this capacity but intend to make it work in coordination with the Federal government.
These are very dangerous times for America, and we are playing with fire, and Bush should be frightened by his own disorientation and the way he disorients his party base. The complete lack of situational awareness that this country is suffering from is mystifying in the light that Americans are such able people who can handle things and entrepreneurial manner. Americans are skilled, and that is good that they have confidence in manipulating animals and matter, but that is not enough, the American people need to re-learn how to deal with people, how deal with themselves as a people, which is a totaly different skill area than doing an everyday good job, yet a very crucial one without which America will be thrown into a political situational confusion maelstrom of divisions and confusions of revolutionary proportions and much more dramatic than Adam and Eve's confusion after biting the fruit of "knowledge" and definitions of good and evil man.
Well at least you didn't lie about your screen name.
It is not that your points are without merit. I know that. But the Right stands for truth. We like character. We didn't have Clinton just because of his liberal views. We hate liars. That seems like a reasonable position to take and we are holding all candidates to that same standard!
Yup when he was in office and had to deal with the issue. But you go ahead and flagellate yourself, while you never bring in solutions or strategy.
You are a one note Bill, IMHO.
The tinfoil feels good, it's the liars we don't like.
Wow that tin foil is really getiing to you, IMHO. You are using the "royal" we.
Well then you are going to be in the wilderness a long time. This is politics and you know it, name me a President since and including Washington that has not played politics.
My notion is that I will be waiting a long time.
BTW, you are also using the "royal" we.
Uh I didn't ask for the run of the mill reactionary "solution". But that doesn't matter since you have no strategy.
BTW, what's up with you, an individual, using the "royal" we.
Bush proactively supported and indeed begged Congress to send him a CFR Bill.
RBMiller (Newly registered Independent)
They get the House back and it is over. They learned their lesson in 1994. They will never give up power if they get it again. For 20 years the moderates and the patriots in that party have lost elections or become Republicans. The Stalinist left is in control. CFR is but a taste of what they really want to do. If they become a majority in the House again, we'll look back to the days of Tip O'Neil, Dan Rostenkowski and Tom Foley as the good times.
No thanks. I had enough authoritarian Republicanism under Nixon. Besides, I like buying towels and underwear from whoever I want and not from Pat's billionaire buddy Milliken.
Forget those losers. Stick with the winners. I'm voting for Hillary. .... gag ....burp!
Absolutely right on. A good man will sometimes judge an issue one way, and then with a closer inspection and more information will judge it differently. Doesn't make him a liar.
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